Controversial Coke Cola Superbowl Commercial Was Kinda What Jesus Was Talking About

Who would have thought that singing America the Beautiful in America, at the Superbowl, and in a Coca Cola commercial could stir controversy?

Apparently for Americans feeling a little on edge it can, if parts of the song are sung in different languages.

It seems the twitter and blog-o-sphere’s were lit up with indignant locals feeling Coca Cola had crossed a national boundary line during last Sunday’s Superbowl;

I am quite sure there may be some who appreciated the commercial, but Coca Cola missed the mark in my opinion. If we cannot be proud enough as a country to sing “American the Beautiful” in English in a commercial during the Super Bowl, by a company as American as they come — doggone we are on the road to perdition. This was a truly disturbing commercial for me

Former Congressman and Fox News Contributor Allen West

Let’s face it though,  Coke is an American company with an International message.  You may remember the 70’s Coke commercial where all the people from around the world sing “I want to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony…”  For decades now Coca Cola  has been marketing themselves as a globally aware American company.

And it worked!

I have traveled to some very remote places on this planet and at local markets in the middle of nowhere it is very common to find a slew of unrecognizable local soft drinks…and Coke!

Be Proud America

I don’t know why my conservative friends get so riled over stuff like this.  Here you have the nations of the world singing America the Beautiful in their native tongues and you are mad its not done in English?

There is hardly a nation on the earth that could even consider such a commercial.  America has the the near unique ability to say to a person whether they are yellow. brown, black, or white “You too can be an American.”

I live in Asia and I can say with certainty that beautiful notion of diversity is not even entertained over here.

Coca Cola and the Kingdom of Heaven

Embedded in the Great Seal of the United States is the Latin phrase E Pluribus Unum which translates “out of many, one”.  The inference is the ability to receive anyone, despite their background, and invite them to become American.

* To make foreigners into citizens

* To make outsiders into insiders

* To give people looking for an identity a place to call home

What a beautiful mandate; and it shadows the mandate of the Kingdom Jesus came to introduce.   He opened the doors to a new citizenship, one where every tribe, nation, and language was invited to be a citizen of.

And like today, he encountered a lot of resistance to that diversity by those who were born originally in the nation and wanted to put up roadblocks to just anyone coming in.  Paul the Apostle says it all when explaining to the Christians in Galatia just who gets to be “in” with this new nation;

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Galatians 3: 26-29

Out of many, One…E Pluribus Unum

I can almost picture the Apostle Paul drinking a Coke as he’s writing the Galatians and humming, “I want to teach the world to sing…in perfect harmony…”

Oh, and by the way, E Pluribus Unum…that ain’t in English either!